Double Your Freelancing Rate

Make the transition from Hired-Gun Freelancer to Highly-Valued Consultant in less than 30 days

Here’s something to ask yourself…“Why do some freelancers charge thousands a week, and others $30 an hour?”

The most successful freelancers out there have 3 qualities in common:

They charge more than what their competitors charge

They close a higher percentage of leads than their competitors close

They have more creative freedom, and they aren’t micromanaged by their clients

You’re probably thinking it’s because they’re well known. They’ve worked with the biggest brands, speak at all the right conferences, and have an incredible portfolio.

You’d think that someone who charges 10x what you do is 10x better than you — right?

Not so fast.

What’s different is that they know how to sell.

I don’t mean that they’re flashy, alpha-types who know how to wine and dine their clients into submission.

Instead, I mean that they’re acutely aware of what their clients want, what (and why) their clients value their projects, and they know how to put together a pitch that their clients can’t resist.

Their clients actually want them to charge them more. And it’s because they give their clients a better product and better results.

“HA! I told you. They’re 10x better than me, that’s why they can do that!”

That’s probably what you’re thinking now, right? I used to think that too.

What took me 3 years and $1,000,000+ in lost revenue to figure out:

Most freelancers don’t have any formal sales training.

If you’re like me, you studied how to be amazing at a craft — you learned how to be a great designer, coder, writer, marketer, or photographer.

But when you decided to go out on your own and work with clients, it hit you like a ton of bricks that success requires more than just mastering a craft.

I’m Brennan Dunn, and I’m a freelancer turned agency owner. I’ve been on my own for a little over a decade.

A few years into my solo freelancing business I decided to grow a team. I knew that if I wanted to do this, I had to take control over how I sold. There was no other alternative. If I was going to add tens of thousands of dollars a month to my payroll I had to bring in more money and bring it in more reliably.

I had to learn how to sell myself and my team.

But as a nerdy introvert, this wasn’t really my thing. I wanted people to work with me because I was good, not because I knew how to schmooze.

And that’s when I started to focus on value.

Because if I could prove to somebody that I was an investment in their business, I’d have no problem selling — and no qualms in charging more.

I started trying to see how I could learn why my clients wanted to spend money. Why did they spend tons of cash on code and design that they could be spending elsewhere? What made them tick?

Starting down this path required me to learn as much as I could about business, sales, and the psychology around why people buy as possible. I joined a number of business courses, hired a business coach, and started talking to anyone who I felt could help me really learn this stuff.

I ended up screwing up a lot of things along the way.

Running the numbers, I calculated that undercharging and having a haphazard sales process resulted in my agency losing out on well over $1 million in revenue.

But once I had everything in order — how to qualify leads, how to systematically learn about the pain behind their project, how to quantify the value of projects, and how to write proposals — everything changed for me and my business:

My team grew to 11 employees.

Annual revenue topped over $2 million a year.

Rome wasn’t built in a day…

Getting to the point where my agency was flourishing and we had consistent deal flow, a solid system for selling, and were able to charge a premium took months of trial & error.

And after I exited my agency to start blogging at Double Your Freelancing, readers kept asking me to go into even more detail about how to sell and price the right way.

This led to a short ebook, Double Your Freelancing Rate, in 2012.

And now, more than half a decade later, that ebook has evolved into a full blown online course that’s been bought by over 8,000 freelancers and small agencies.

Thousands of small companies (and the lives of their owners) have been transformed by this course. And I’d love to see you become our next student and our next success story.

January was my best month bringing in about $6,900. Doing proposals made a huge difference (which I got the verbiage for through the Double Your Freelancing Rate course). I learned how to explain value, rather than just sharing cost.

Maya Elious, Designer

What's Inside

Inside this course you’ll find all the know-how, scripts, documents, templates, case studies, and more you need to radically reframe the way you sell yourself to clients.

Understanding Your Clients

What do your clients want? Why are they willing to part their hard earned money on freelancers like you? How can you truly understand what your clients need, and the value of your clients’ projects?

Why Do We Become Freelancers?

What Do Clients Want?

Qualifying New Clients

The Pain Behind The Project

Quantifying The Financial Upside

Getting To A Solution

Working With The Wrong Clients

Your Rate

Why do most freelancers charge so little, and few charge a lot? In this module, we’ll dive into pricing theory and the science behind money as it relates to consulting.

Trapped In The Middle Of A Project Pitch

The Science Of Pricing

Avoiding Commoditization

Reducing Risk

Project Billing Structures

Value-Based Pricing

Determining Your Rate

Being Confident In What You Charge

How To Close The Deal

This module covers everything you need to know about pitching a client. We’ll look into how you should write your proposals, how to package your services, and what to do when clients push back.

When To Propose

Structuring Your Proposal

Packaging

Handling Pushback

The Path Forward

What’s next now that you’re charging premium prices? We’ll look into how you can start productizing your consulting, raising your rates on your existing clients, and building your brand.

Selling Retainers

Productized Consulting

Raising Your Rates On Existing Clients

What Does Tomorrow Look Like For You?

Video Case Studies

Case studies with students who have successfully implemented the DYFRate framework.

Bart Mroz

Chad Owen

Ciprian Gavriliu

Curtis McHale

David Olesch

David Tanzer

Glenn Stovall

Kai Davis

Matthew Lehner

Nick Hance

Parveen Kaler

Robert Williams

Shanna Kurpe

Vangos Pterneas

Extras

Here you’ll find scripts, swipe material, and all the contracts and templates you need to apply the DYFRate framework to your business.

Swipe Files

Ready-To-Go Scripts

Document Templates

As a direct result of Brennan challenging my thinking about value creation, we’re now able to charge a much higher rate, but we also deliver 10x the results than we have in the past.

Tom Morkes, Marketer

Who's behind this course?

I'm Brennan Dunn, and for the last decade I've been working with clients. I started out as a freelancer, and after 3 years my business grew to an agency of 11 employees and a $2 million in annual revenue.

I love freelance consulting, but I'm hell-bent on helping other freelancers learn how to master the BUSINESS of freelancing. A lot of us (myself included) started freelancing because we're technically solid... but end up learning the hard way being successful is much more than just being good at what we do.

In addition to this course, I also write and podcast weekly for my audience of over 50,000+ freelancers. I also host two worldwide conferences for freelancers.

("What's with the robe, Brennan?!" We hosted our last European conference at an all-inclusive Japanese resort. It was a blast – and a bit weird! – presenting on stage in a kimono.)

The Course Is For You If...

You’re starting or run a freelancing business, or you run a small agency

You don’t really have a process for how you qualify and pitch new clients

You aren’t systematic about how you price your work

You don’t price on value (instead, you charge the “going rate” or whatever feels right)

You often struggle to justify why your clients should hire you

The Course Is Not For You If...

You aren’t willing to radically overhaul your sales process

You don’t want to strategically partner with your clients (e.g. you’d rather be handed tasks off Fiverr or via an agency)

You resist trying new things, even when the data and framework is put right in front of you

You don’t actually want to break free of being a commoditized freelancer (some people genuinely don’t – and that’s fine!)

When I ran into Brennan’s material, I doubted my competency and expertise in my industry. Looking back at it now, it was the main reason I talked myself out of increasing my rates or taking risks that needed to be taken.

Princess Clemente, Designer and College Student

What’s next for you and your business?

I’m not sure what your goals are with your freelancing business.

Maybe you want to spend more time with your friends and family? (Just think: If you 2x’ed your prices you could work half the time with no income change.)

Or maybe you just want to make money without having to work more? (There’s nothing wrong with that.) Travel the world, upgrade your house, pay off your debt, start (or grow) a family, or do whatever having more money and more predictability could do for you.

Honestly, I don’t care what you want to do after you’ve raised your rates. I just want to help you increase your freelancing income.

Right now you have two paths you could go down:

“The Long Road”: Continue doing what you’ve been doing and slowly piece together your own unique process through a lot of trial and error.

“The Shortcut”: Adopt a proven framework that has helped thousands of others like you build a more profitable business.

What would being able to raise your prices by just 10% on your next client project mean for you?